One of our friends had come over from France and it was a hot summer's day and we were in a rush to eat outside before it got cold - it was just before 6 pm. I grabbed the wine and chilled it in a wine sock. The women wanted some rosé wine and who was I to argue. But this was a chance to test out French people's ability to spot their own wine -or not.
My wife and our friend tasted the wine blind and they had no complaints and my wife made no comment about the origin f the wine. I found the wine very sweet but the sweetness was not balanced by a decent level of acidity. However, the wine went down well with some salad and ham.
The wine is made from the Zinfandel grape which is quite common in California and often used to make spicy red wine.
White Zinfandel is not the name of a grape but it's the name of the process used to make the wine which involves stopping the fermentation of the grape must before all the sugar is used up. This is why the wine is sweet and this is why the wine is so popular.
A bottle of this wine costs around £6.50 which is rather expensive so it must have something going for it as it has to compete with cheaper rosé wine from France and Spain.
To me this wine does not merit the the five star rating given to it by Tesco's customers - perhaps I am a wine snob. I also think that Tesco's tasting note is very much over the top. I felt that the wine tasted as if it had been made in industrial quantities and that it had a chemical edge but maybe this was because of my prejudice; I had after all had sight of the label. However, if the wine had been no good my wife would have told me. I did not feel inclined to open a different bottle.
I would give it a three star rating because the wine is of good quality for every day drinking but in my opinion it is nothing special at the price. In Britain there is more duty on wines imported from outside of the EU and this is why the wine is so pricey.
There is nothing wrong in buying wine of this quality and it is like comparing standard cheddar cheese to mature cheddar. I don't want to eat expensive cheddar every day of the week I am content with the standard supermarket product. I save the good stuff for a special occasion. I am not a lover of rosé wine but if I want to spoil myself I go for a Bandol but of course that is much more expensive than the Gallo White Zinfandel.
The Gallo wine is not strong in alcohol at 9.5% but I did not notice it. The wine is very easy to drink and you could easily find yourself opening another bottle: Cheers.
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